Francis Chan notes #YPS16

How deeply do you know God? Do you struggle with security in your relationship with God?

Those are questions we all struggle with, no matter if you follow God closely or if you’re as far away from God as you can be.

Francis Chan, author of books like Crazy Love, Marriage In Light Of Eternity, and Forgotten God, was the keynote speaker for #YPS16 (Youth Pastor Summit; see this post for why you should go if you’re in student ministry!) in Orlando.

Here are my notes, in their raw entirety. I hope they encourage and challenge you, as they did me. And if you see something that makes you go, “Oh yeah!” or something that makes you roll your eyes, let me know!

How deeply do I know Him? Everyone else can wait; I’ve got to know Him better.
Some of us are like, “Why do one thing when we can do three,” so we see relationship as a waste of time, thanksgiving as a waste of time.

Psalm 4, as we rejoice in the Lord, He gives His beloved sleep. He gives while we sleep.

How much of the Bible is about knowing Him?

Don’t feel bad if that’s something you need to do, but we’ve got to get right with the Lord.

Some of you have this insecurity in your relationship with God, like you want to see your name written in His book. That’s not what God wants, to where we have to wait until heaven to get that security.

Ephesians 3:14, For this reason I bow my knee before the Father…that He may grant you to be strengthened in power…to know the love of Christ…

Think about God right now and what He could grant you in power…

You can’t give someone a hunger; it’s something God grants.

“Pizza parties and accountability groups aren’t going to help the future.”

When was the last time you prayed for a student, Eph 3:14ff, for their whole nature to change? THIS is the miracle that we’re after.

I feel like for too long we’ve been trying to do this in the flesh, without focused time on our knees.
…filled with the fullness of God… Is that how people describe you?

Pray for your volunteers, for your leaders, to be strengthened in their inner man.

Other things can wait; this is your first love.

Look at your congregation, Are they at home in silence before God? We are at home in busyness and not at home in the Lord.

Every commercial has one thing in mind: to get you to covet. That’s Satan’s goal. Are you dead to things of the world? God wants us so dead to the things of the world that we don’t even look at them. Colossians 3:5 (covetousness is idolatry)